


Chasing Ghosts

by metalmeisje



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Character Death, Depressing, Dystopia, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalmeisje/pseuds/metalmeisje
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They let the silence stretch out between them, shimmering with memories that neither of them felt eager to explore. There was nothing left of the old world, but the price of immortality was paid with vivid recollections. (Note to the Yogscast: Do not read any of my fics on stream.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> "Pssst as a little note, can I request a fic where Sips and Ryth are the only ones still around after everyone died and stuff. And Ryth would be older in it as well." ~Hikari
> 
> Well, here you go, friend. Hope this is depressing enough for you. 
> 
> This is based on our own RP universe, in which both Rythian (part Ender dragon) and Sips (vampire) are immortal. The rest of the gang.. Isn't.

_and I counted the freckles on your face_  
 _because they were constellations to me and deserved a name_  
 _so I named_  
 _each_  
 _and_  
 _every_  
 _one of them_  
 _until you laughed in embarrassed amusement_  
 _there was a man who reached for the future but got twisted and tangled in wires and flesh_  
 _a man who knew every Ending but his own_  
 _a girl with wings of magic and down_  
 _and a man of pools and broken brooms_  
 _there was a girl who chased the colour of orchids and fell to her knees one too many times_  
 _a friend from the past, turned enemy_  
 _turned friend again_  
 _and his companion with blood in his eyes and a never-ending grin_  
 _there was a never-ending storm in our backyard that mocked us with static shocks_  
 _and ruffled fabric the opposite of modest_  
 _and there I was and there you were_  
 _the world spat us out_  
 _but we stood in the rain and laughed because it was ours_  
 _until the water turned to ashes_  
 _and I counted the freckles on your face  
_ _until not even reciting their names could bring you back to me_

Sips only went outside when it rained. It was a habit he'd picked up long ago and even though it was cloudy most days, the sun safely hidden from view, he still stuck to his old habits out of a weird sense of nostalgia. He walked through the fields near his home, he hunted, he wandered around until the sky looked like it was clearing up and he had to go back. Sometimes, if he was lucky, it rained all day and night so he could sit on the top of a hill, staring at the grey skies, body still here but thoughts wandering through corridors that had long been burned to the ground.

And that was how Rythian found him, a grey shadow distorted by the water pouring down from the skies. The mage floated down and landed quietly next to him, squinting against the rain that obscured his view and dripped from his hair. He frowned and pulled his scarf a little tighter before nodding at his old friend.

“Sips. I thought I’d find you here.”

Sips didn’t look up, just shrugged once to acknowledge the mage. He felt Rythian sit down next to him and considered lashing out, chasing him away with a sneer so he could be alone with his thoughts. He was barely ever in the mood for company anyway, but on days like these the memories snuck up on him with no regard for his wishes and he had learned to ride them out.

But Rythian had just as much right to be here as he does, he supposed. So he shrugged and stared ahead, knowing that it would be enough of an answer.

They sat in silence for a while, staring at the land stretching out before them. It was a lot more barren than it used to be; most of the trees were gone, had been gone for a long time, and if you moved a bit further out the ground was charred and lifeless, silent scars of a war that was fought here once.

 _One_ of the wars, Sips thought bitterly. The worst one.

Eventually, he turned his head to Rythian and attempted a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, not caring enough to make a real effort. “So. What brings you here, dragon boy?”

Rythian winced at the old nickname but stopped the retort before it tumbled out, not meeting Sips’ eyes. This was never the moment to fall back into old arguments, no matter how familiar. “That time of the year again,” he replied instead. “I thought I’d come and see an old friend.”

And how accurate that was, Sips thought to himself. They were both so, so old. The lands around them had died, taking everything that mattered with them, leaving a world that seemed suspended in time because there was nothing to push it forward anymore. No use in building another factory when there was no one who would take your goods. He supposed Rythian had found another way to pass the time but he’d never been able to bring himself to ask, afraid that the mage would think he was going crazy all the way out here by himself, taking pity on him.

Small chance, but still. He never asked.

And there wasn’t anything to be done, anyway. Even if he went along with Rythian, left behind the broken remains of a building that no longer towered above them and the ghosts that haunted the ruins, Sips knew they would follow him everywhere. Might as well keep them company to save everyone the trouble.

So he just glanced at Rythian, meeting worried eyes above that same goddamn scarf for a moment, before answering just a little too roughly: “It’s the same all year round, Ryth. Don’t see why you suddenly got the urge to come back here.”

“You’re right, I suppose. But some days are… Worse.”

Rythian picked up a rock from the ground, studying it for a moment so he had something else to look at than Sips, before throwing it away with more force than he intended. “You know what I mean, Sips. It’s always this time…”

“Stop it,” Sips growled. “Just… Don’t, Rythian.”

They let the silence stretch out between them, shimmering with memories that neither of them felt eager to explore. There was nothing left of the old world, but the price of immortality was paid with vivid recollections.

After minutes that ticked by too slowly, Rythian coughed and glanced at Sips. “Remember that time Nilesy made me a pool filled with chocolate milk, though?”

Sips stared at Rythian for a moment before barking with laughter, the image clear as ever in his mind. “Shit, yeah. You looked so lost, man.” Sniggering, he leaned back on his elbows. “Wasn’t that the night you scared the living daylight out of pool guy as well?”

Rythian nodded and relaxed a little, flicking his wet hair out of his face. “He nearly vomited the entire meal back up again, I think.”

“Shit, I almost forgot about that,” Sips lied. He hadn’t forgotten a single thing, but the good memories got lost in the fray most of the times. It felt good, to laugh again; his cheeks ached with the unfamiliarity of it.

“Oh, and remember the… Wait, was it the third or the fourth time we blew up the Labs?” Sips laughed. “That time when Nano went swimming?”

Rythian nodded, grinning behind his scarf. “Too clearly, to be honest. That was when you and Xephos…”

He tried to swallow the words but they escaped him before he could help it; he watched Sips’ expression drop at the mention of the spaceman, all the light disappearing from his eyes in a split second.

Sips just stares straight ahead.

Slowly, he nodded. “I remember that,” he replied quietly, digging his hands into the sand in frustration. He closed his eyes to shut out the vivid images but they crashed down on him anyway, a painful weight that made his quiet heart clench. “’s Hard to forget.”

A void was nothing new, but the one left by people they’d known was worst of all – and it never left.

Lomadia had been the first to die, against what everyone had expected. The worst part that the news of her death hadn’t reached them until weeks later, when Nilesy came to the Labs with shadows under his eyes and his broom dragging behind him. They’d never gotten all of the details from him, but the way he spoke about burying her broken body left them with enough ideas to last them a lifetime. The owls had never sounded the same.

Nilesy had been the second to die. He’d been a slow learner with Lomadia around but when she was gone, he became predictably reckless. And there are only so many accidental demons you can summon before one of them decides he does not care for a pool salesman who happens to live in a witch’s hut and takes his soul as payment. They’d built a pool on top of his grave because it would have been a Nilesy thing to do, but it lacked something that only Nilesy would have been able to fix.

Lalna and Nano had been the third and fourth to die. It was another day, another explosion, another nuclear reactor that overheated; they’d come to expect it and knew how to run. But sometimes, you just can’t run fast enough. Xephos had found their charred remains and buried them himself, refusing to let anyone else see the bodies. _At least they died together,_ some people said. But it didn’t mean a thing.

Rythian refused to talk to anyone for weeks.

Sjin had been the fifth to die and Xephos came to Sips with regret in his eyes, but Sips didn’t want to hear it. Thinking about the farmer who had mended and broken his heart hurt more than he’d cared to admit then; he closed that chapter and didn’t want to revisit it. He pushed it away and decided to ask Xephos about it when the betrayal would no longer be so fresh in his mind.

Xephos has been the sixth to die.

Sips refused to think about that.

Strife and Parvis had lasted longer than anyone could have guessed, aided by blood magic and a fortress that Will had built quickly after the incident with Kerosene. He hid Parvis and himself from the world and worked on his genetic experiments that were bound to backfire eventually. Parvis lasted a little while longer, lost without his best friend but all the more eager to reach heights well beyond him in an attempt at oblivion. But blood magic is a fickle mistress that always comes to collect the debt in due time.

No one knew what had happened to Zoeya, the cheerful apprentice with an arm made of metal who had escaped explosions and found shelter with the mushrooms underground; they’d stopped hearing from her eventually, and even though especially Rythian remained adamant that she was probably safe, but after two hundred years even someone as full of life as Zoeya would have faded away.

Martyn had disappeared as well. One particular winter, his hair covered in icy flowers and a blizzard in his eyes, he’d left the safe haven of his frozen forest and just never returned.

The demigods retreated last of all in a blaze of glory, eager to start a new story in a world that wasn’t bruised and bled dry. There was nothing left to harvest, all of their toys broken and tossed aside carelessly.

Kirin had paid Rythian one last visit before he zapped out of existence, offering a new beginning, but Rythian refused. Sips had never understood that; he would have left in a heartbeat if he’d still had one, more than willing to leave the wasteland behind and start all over again in an attempt at oblivion.

In the end, they’d both stayed. Neither knew why.

Sips stumbled to his feet and crossed his arms in front of his chest, staring at the void in front of them with narrowed eyes. Rythian followed after a moment, letting the wind howl in pain so they wouldn’t have to. They were not very similar, never had been; apart from living a life much longer than expected, the vampire and the one from the End had very little in common.

Apart from memories, maybe.

“I’ll see you next year.”

Sips never answered.


End file.
